Friday, October 16, 2009

Put God First & the Rest Will Follow

1 Peter 3:1-2
3:1 “Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, 2 when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.”

As I ponder over the topic of believers being married to unbelievers, I am led to the vows and responsibilities that each spouse has to the other. Within the marriage, God places the husband over the wife and God is over the husband and the wife. In a situation where the wife is a believer and her husband is not there yet, it can be stressful on the marriage if the wife is trying to fulfill her vow to be obedient and submissive to her husband. I’ve often been challenged by this myself. In this situation, I had to learn that although I want to honor my vows of obedience and submissiveness to my husband; however, as a woman of God, I have to first be obedient and submissive to Christ.

In the beginning of my marriage, God was important in my life, but my husband was the most important person in my life. I was a submissive wife and felt that I was being true to my marriage vows by doing so. All I wanted was to have a blissful marriage and wanted it to remain that way forever. As I began to grow in Christ, the order of who was most important in my life began to change. Now that Christ is the most important person in my life, and then my hubby and our marriage, I am in a better place; I am at peace. At first I didn’t know how this would affect my marriage as my husband has always known his place in my heart and in my life as number one (1). I shared with him about my growth in Christ and that God is now the head of my life. My husband understood this and he is happy for me. There have been moments of tension when I’ve made a choice or a decision that God has led me to make and my husband wasn’t included. I credit this to my husband’s lack of understanding of what it means to allow God to be head of your life. If God placed him as head over me within this marriage and he is not yet at a place where God is the head over his life, then I must be obedient to the Lord first. I know that I am the most important person in my husband’s life and that God is important to him also; he just needs to change the order of who’s most important to him. I believe that this will be accomplished through prayer and by example. I strive daily to be submissive to my husband and do so by being obedient to Christ!

1 Peter 3:1-2
3:1 “Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, 2 when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.”

In summary, 1Peter 3:1“When a man became a Christian, he usually would bring his whole family into the church with him (see for example, the story of the conversion of the Philippian jailer in Acts 16:29-33). By contrast, a woman who became a Christian usually came into the church alone. Under Roman law, the husband and father had absolute authority over all members of his household, including his wife. Demanding her rights as a free woman in Christ could endanger her marriage if her husband disapproved. Peter reassured Christian women who were married to unbelievers that they did not need to preach to their husbands. Under the circumstances, their best approach would be one of loving service: they should show their husbands the kind of self-giving love that Christ showed the church. By being exemplary wives, they would please their husbands. At the very least, the men would allow them to continue practicing their “strange” religion. At best, their husbands would join them and become Christians too.”

Scripture quotation and summary are taken from the Life Application Study Bible (NIV).

Find the Jewel in You, See the Gem in Him!
Treazure

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